at $600 million. as you're waiting in line tonight, don't bother looking for ray. his american dream, his luxury win has already happened. that's all for us tonight. "beyond trayvon: race and justice in america" starts right now. his name was trayvon martin. and his death has come to symbolize the racial tension and suspicions that still exist in america. i'm soledad o'brien. people from across this nation are here in this audience tonight to talk about this case and the questions that it raises. questions that cut to the heart of a country that promises liberty and justice for all. >> no justice, no peace! no justice, no peace! >> the killing of an unarmed teenager by a neighborhood watch volunteer touches a raw nerve across the nation. >> i know i cannot bring my baby back.

but i'm sure going to make changes so that this does not happen to another family. >> the absolute facts lie with two people and one of them is dead. >> the case of trayvon martin is not unique. a child so innocent killed by a vigilante. >> was it racially motivated? the answer is absolutely not. >> what we worry about is seeking the truth. >> tonight, we separate the facts from the hype and the emotion and have a candid conversation about race and justice. this is about more than trayvon martin. this is about the future of every child in america. >> you know, if i had a son he'd look like trayvon. i think all of us had to to some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen? >> i hope we're all ready for the kind of soul searching the president was talking about. there's lots to discuss. many young african-american men

live with the knowledge that what happened to trayvon martin could possibly happen to them. that's true no matter what investigators learn about that horrible night in sanford, florida. more than a month ago now. so tonight, we want to take a hard look at all the aspects of this case. and the law enforcement system from racial profiling to community watch programs. we're also going to talk about reaction to martin's killing. has this been a rush to judgment? will the outrage and all the media attention bring justice or prevent it? the shooting on february 26 continues to fuel so much reaction but the fact remains we still don't know all of the facts. here's cnn's david mattingly with what we know so far. >> [ bleep ] -- always get away. >> that was george zimmerman's first impression of 17-year-old trayvon martin. as the hispanic neighborhood watch captain called 911 in sanford, florida, to report a young black man he thought was acting strangely in his gated community.

>> this guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. >> it's probably about right here where zimmerman made that call to police. you can see we're not very far from the entry gates into this neighborhood. at the time, it was a little after dark and it was raining. so tray have been very likely had his hood up over his head. zimmerman leaves his vehicle and follows martin on foot. >> are you following him? >> yeah. >> okay. we don't need you to do that. >> okay. >> but zimmerman never makes it back to his car. minutes later, the sound of a confrontation. >> 911, do you need police, fire, medical? >> maybe both. there's somebody screaming outside. >> so you think you're hearing help? >> yes. >> okay. what is -- >> there's gunshots. >> you just heard gunshots? >> yes. >> how many? >> just one. >> police find trayvon martin shot dead on the ground.

zimmerman has a bloody nose and a cut on the back of his head. he claims self-defense. police do not arrest him. >> you have returned force with force when somebody assaults you. >> but martin was unarmed. carrying only a bag of skittles and a can of iced tea. >> what do we want? justice, when do we want it? now! >> martin's death provokes demands for justice. >> who's that crying? >> trayvon's crying. >> it sparks debate on everything from racial profiling to hoodies. from neighborhood watches to self-defense. and a controversial florida law. >> by statute, if someone alleges or makes a statement of self-defense, unless we have probable cause to dispute that, we cannot make an arrest. >> and while george zimmerman remains a free man, trayvon martin's parents wait for answers.

>> all i know is that my son was carried away in a body bag and zimmerman was left to go and shower and sleep in his bed. >> the u.s. justice department launches its own investigation. florida governor rick scott names a special prosecutor. >> you can't imagine losing a 17-year-old son. >> after claims of racial bias rocked the sanford pd, angry demands for zimmerman's arrest remain mixed with appeals for patience and calm. as one tragic encounter stirs millions into action. >> joining me now the lawyer for trayvon martin's parents, benjamin crump. the latest today seems to be an eyewitness, a neighbor who we have modified the voice because this particular person is worried about being identified. but they described what was seen, starting with a scuffle. listen.

>> after the larger man got off, then there was a boy, obviously now dead, on the ground. facing down. there was a hispanic man and he was, um, you know, he didn't appear hurt or anything else. he kind of seemed very, you know, very worried. >> the scuffle took place on the grass. this witness seems to be saying, and also that george zimmerman did not look hurt after the scuffle. what to you make of this? >> it's certainly consistent with what we see in that videotape that was riveting for all of america to see. >> let's look at some of the evidence that we do know. you have talked to a young woman named dee dee, trayvon martin's girlfriend. has dee dee spoken to police yet? >> not yet. >> why not? >> well, they're setting it up now as we speak, i understand

it. but what's very telling, soledad, is the records. her story -- >> the phone records? >> the phone records. and at 7:12 was our last call to him. the phone call lasted for four minutes. at 7:17 according to the police records, they got to the scene and trayvon was shot and killed on the ground. and that tells us a lot. it tells us that she heard some part of the conversation that happened between george zimmerman and trayvon martin. and what she heard was not him coming to identify himself as any neighborhood association captain or anything like that. he said, what are you doing around here? as to suggest that he didn't have a right to be here. and you listen to the 911 tapes, what he thought about trayvon. so we can gleam where his mentality was after he got out of the car. >> does it potentially compromise the case that this young woman who i guess is an earwitness to large degree and

has the phone record, that could be so critical to the case, she hasn't talked to the police but she's talked to you? >> her parents don't want her involved in this case. but she has to by law. it's hard, but she's going to do it. >> let's talk about trayvon. he lived in miami with his mother. he had a passion for dirt bikes and he had troubles at school. they found him carrying some jewelry and a screwdriver and also suspended. suspended. there was a baggy that was full of residue of marijuana in his book back. much of the conversation over the last week focused on these things, his behavior and record. things that were leaked to the media. does it matter? >> absolutely not. it is completely irrelevant as to what happened on the night of february 26. i have to say this, this is troubling. they run a background check on trayvon who's dead on the ground.

they don't run a background check on the guy who just shot and killed a kid in cold blood. in essence what they did, they said that zimmerman, your word is more credible and we're going to accept that. just like you profiled him and that 911 tape, this is a little thug on the ground and he really doesn't deserve a fair and impartial investigation. >> well, those are all the questions and many more that everyone is asking. who was george zimmerman? was he this overly aggressive self-appointed neighborhood watchman or a concerned citizen, protecting his community after a rash of burglaries? >> he's got his hand in his waist band. and he's a black male. he's coming to check me out. he's got something in his hands. i don't know what his deal is.

george zimmerman hasn't said anything publicly about the shooting trayvon martin beyond what he's said to the police. he's married and he's a registered democrat and is licensed to carry a concealed weapon. according to sanford police records he called 911 pretty regularly. 46 times since 2004. he was arrested about six years ago for assaulting an officer and resisting arrest at a local bar. zimmerman was enrolled at a local state college but he was asked to withdraw and the martin shooting. he attended a four-month long program at the sheriff's office and zimmerman's father said there's more to his son than the public realizes.

>> the majority of the people who have seen the picture of the little boy on tv and a terrible george zimmerman at some point when all of this is settled, they will say, you know, george zimmerman is actually a pretty nice guy. he's color-blind when it comes to any race. >> i want to start with the question to the audience and i want to see a show of hand, if you will. how many people in this room, you don't have to tell me how you decided, but how many have already formed an opinion on george zimmerman's innocence or guilt. raise your hand. pretty much everybody. i see two, three people without their hands up. maybe five total. joining me now, hln anchor jane velez-mitchell and one of the very first attorneys to try a stand your ground case in the state of florida. also, dr. alicia salzer. i want to start with you.

paint a psychological profile of george zimmerman from what we know. >> first the legal disclaimer, i never met george zimmerman and i have read the same reports that everybody else has. that's what i'm going by. george liked to see himself at the center of justice. he sought out opportunities to be the guy who defended right versus wrong. there's stories in his past that he chased a guy who had stolen a tv or that he tried to defend a friend who is being arrested. and it seemed that he really did enjoy his job on the neighborhood watch where he was the guy who got to make the calls. these to me are all not necessarily bad traits in a guy who's on a neighborhood watch. even making 46 calls to the cops over six years. that's a call every few months. if something isn't going on in the neighborhood every few months maybe you don't need a watch. what concerns me about george zimmerman and this is the big moral flaw that i see that i find really concerning is that

that man who had a license to carry a gun chose to bring that gun to a job where he was not permitted to have it. and that is no small thing. that is not a soft line in the sand that's a moral crevasse that he leaped over. >> we have not heard from george zimmerman, but if you were representing him, what would you tell him, what would you advise him at this point? what would you want to hear from him? >> well, i'd want to get the evidence, get the truth out so i can research it and investigate it and i can help him understand the facts of the case. the bottom line here, and i have said this before, in this particular case is about justifiable use of deadly force. what force did george zimmerman have exerted against him by trayvon? and that's the key issue that we have to look at, soledad. i think that's where you're going to see other witnesses

come out, this investigation is going to be ongoing. i think it's going to be thorough because i think seminal county in sanford they want to get this right. put all the chips on the table, maybe let a grand jury decide, but let's get it right. >> many of the conversations have moved from the facts of the case to race and racial profiling and conversations about george zimmerman's ethnicity and also trayvon martin's race. why is race such a big issue in this? >> well, it shouldn't be. in the sense that we as a culture need to start moving beyond describing people just in terms of their race. and so i think this is an opportunity for us to really look at what do police departments do, why do they always ask somebody who's reporting somebody suspicious, are they black or white or hispanic? trayvon martin is described as a black male in one paragraph in the police report. why are they constantly focusing

on him being a black male? >> and friends and father of george zimmerman have come forward to say he's not a racist. i want to play what they said. >> george is not a racist. >> george zimmerman is not a racist. and this particular case is not based on race. >> he's color-blind when it comes to any race. >> the conversation has become about race and racism. why is this so important to answer that question or is it important to answer the question, is george zimmerman a racist? >> you know, i observe as a psychiatrist that we do something interesting in the absence of facts. why did my husband leave me, was i didn't make enough money, was it because of my thighs and we choose the ones we're the most afraid of. we don't have answers and we're choosing the one that we're most afraid of.

the kids are hearing the national dialogue and seeing people get fired up about something that could be wrong and they're making decisions about did a guy shot a kid who is black or is there a whole race of people who hate us so much that they could shoot us for no reason? that's what worries me. >> we want to look at neighborhood watches, everybody of course wants to keep their community safe. but are some neighborhood watch watch volunteers frustrated police officers or dangerous vigilantes? we'll talk about the benefits and risks too as we take you beyond the trayvon martin case.

we have experienced eight burglaries. most of the majority of the perpetrators were young black males. >> this guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. >> oh, my god, he shot the person. he shot the person. >> for weeks, trayvon martin's family and supporters have been demanding george zimmerman's arrest. zimmerman is a free man right now because of a controversial law in florida and 20 other states. it's called stand your ground and it allows citizens to fight force with force when threatened. joining me now is curtis sliwa, the founder of the guardian angels and also still with us is attorney j.e. bear who defended

cases on the stand your ground law. mr. sliwa, you founded the guardian angels and i think your name is synonymous with civilian patrols. what did george zimmerman do wrong and was there anything he did right that night? >> he did nothing right except wake up early that day and begin to stalk people that through his paranoia he thought were looking to commit crime on his compound. a self-appointed watchman. the other day i'm speaking in a high school in new jersey and the youngsters go oh, you're just like zimmerman. i wanted to impale myself right there. wait a second. i buried six guardian angels who have been shot and killed in the line of duty, i was stalked myself, i had a gunman go pow, pow, pow, five hollow point bullets.

he's become the face of block watch crime watch. >> what was he doing different from your block watch crime watch? >> he was so low, he had all the furniture upstairs and rearranged in the wrong rooms. i know everyone is fixated on hoodies, but i know there had to be a bunch of young men passing by with hoodies. in his mind, trayvon was a hood, a hoodlum, an enemy of society. guy had skittles and iced tea. he was going home. you feel the instinct, somebody is stalking you. somebody is on your back and trayvon probably at a certain point decided to stand his ground. >> let me ask chief parker a question about what it's like to have citizens involved in the patrol. is it ever helpful to the police officers or do you prefer not to have them involved in sort of how you're handling crime?

>> good evening, soledad. it's very helpful to law enforcement and it is a thing that's really designed to be extra set of eyes and ears to law enforcement. and it's termed watch for a specific reason. it's not engage. it's not apprehend. it's not attempt to be a police officer. it is designed to watch and ultimately report to law enforcement occasionally, you'll have an individual who as described earlier through profile may not be appropriately assigned as a crime watch person or a crime watch captain. i encourage and ask all crime watches in america, if you have this type of a personality or individual in your watch group or organization, by all means get rid of him. >> would you ever want a person who's on a crime watch to be armed? >> absolutely not. >> let me ask you a question, jay, about the crime profile in seminole county. sanford is the biggest city

inside seminole county and leads the county in rape, it leads the county in robbery. it leads in burglaries. i leads the county in auto theft and larceny. that city. would that have any relevance to the case? is his paranoia if there is some making some sense? >> well, here's where that's really relevant. when we look at justifiable use of deadly force, we have to look to the instruction that a jury is going to get and the jury's instruction is going to say in a reasonable person, in a like or similar situation, were they justified in the force they used? what force was being used against mr. zimmerman? that's going to be the issue. my prediction is i think he's going to say that trayvon reached for the gun and he was somehow justified. we have to wait and see what the evidence is in this case. i don't think some cuts and

bruises and a hit to the nose is ever going to rise to the level of justifiable use of deadly force. you have to meet deadly force with deadly force. a knife, a gun, a car, those are instruments that can be used to apply deadly force. i don't think getting punched in the mouth or hit on the curb is going to rise to that level. that's going to be the critical issue. now, with regard to stand your ground, the only real difference with that is it says that you're immune from prosecution if based on a preponderance of the evidence you were entitled to use that deadly force. the other factor here is what we call the duty to retreat. normally, you would have to retreat. under the stand your ground law, you're able to stand firm and meet force with force. but again, it goes back to the fundamental issue, what was the deadly force being used? that's going to be the issue for this state attorney's office, the grand jury and eventually a jury to decide.

>> i want to go to jay oconnor in our audience. he has a question about stand your ground for our experts. >> in this particular case, how do you prove stand your ground? >> so jay, if you're the attorney here, how would you go about proving that stand your ground does apply and that it doesn't protect trayvon martin because it looks like he could have been protected also by stand your ground, correct? >> correct. it's clear that both parties could have the right to stand their ground and defend themselves. the bottom line, this case is going one of two ways there is either going to be independent third party witnesses and in the police report that was released today we have three witnesses listed that are all two white females and a white male. and ranges from 20 to almost 55 years of age. so there may be a third party witness that will be a critical player in this case to determine whether or not either party had the right to stand your ground. if that's not here, then we're go to be left with what we call

in the business a he said/she said or a one-on-one. and unfortunately trayvon is not here to give his version of the facts. >> gentlemen, thank you for that. young, black teenager wearing a hoodie. so is it another average american boy or is that picture of a threat? we'll talk about racial profiling and the often angry backlash against it. does everybody make snap judgments based on race? that's still ahead.

why in 2012 are we still talking about racial profiling? shouldn't this be a thing of the past? joining me this evening is harvard law school professor is charles ogletree. his book is about the wrongful arrest of another harvard professor, henry louis gates. and we have the mother of adala. he was 22 and unarmed back in 1999 when he died when he was shot 41 times by four new york police officers. back with is us again is dr. alicia salzer.

i want to focus on the 911 calls. it's going to be something that everybody is focusing on in this case. let's play a little bit of the call between george zimmerman and the dispatcher. >> this guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. it's raining and he's just walking and looking about. >> professor ogletree, i'll start with you. to me, at the end of the day the most important question seems to be what was it that made trayvon martin suspicious to george zimmerman, correct? >> he was black and he was a male and zimmerman saw him. this is what the book is all about, as you know, soledad. it's not about henry gates. it's about the presumption of guilt. you look at someone's skin, you look at what they're wearing and when i talk in the book, i talked about the trayvons of the world. he's become a legend. every parent, every sibling,

every stranger is going to say what do i do about my son or my daughter, what they wear, where they go. it's going to change america's behavior. this was in a sense, this was a presumption of guilt. he looked at his face, they saw him dressed, he was up to no good. he did nothing wrong, but they said he did something wrong and now he's dead. >> do you have to be a racist, sometimes i think we throw that word around a lot, but do you have to be a racist to racially profile somebody? >> no, not at all. but the idea of profiling is about gender, age, class, dress. and people are presumed guilty by what they drive, where they jog, where they sleep and this is 2012. every parent has to have that fear. i'm not excusing black on black crime. it's just as bad, because of the

way they dress or the colors they're wearing, all of this is wrong. >> mr. dialo, your son was shot dead by police. it was a case of mistaken identity. he was reaching for his wallet. we all know now it happened back in february of 1999. he was just 22 years old. you have been working for the last 13 years i know to try to bridge the gap and help people understand and work against racial profiling. do you feel hopeful or do you feel that this case just proves that your work has been in vain? >> thank you, soledad, for having me tonight. let me tell you what struck me here. my daughter have triplet sons. i'm a grandma now. she said to me, mom, my sons, three boys are 7 years old today. in ten years, they will be exactly trayvon martin's age. mom, i'm scared. what can we do?

that night, i did not sleep because she's right. we should not deal with this kind of cases after 13 years of struggle of talking of bringing the debate in churches, in mosques, in college campuses, even in high schools. let me say i don't know the technicality of the case. i don't want to comment on the case, but i am curious to know if anybody thought about the size of mr. zimmerman and also trayvon martin's size. this is a teenage son who went out, posed no threat to him. if the police told him to stop, not to follow him, martin is going on his way, why did he think that he has to go and get him and he looks suspicious? this was the reason my son was killed 13 years ago.

to say they looked suspicious. which is wrong. i do not believe that mothers should -- every mom should teach their children how to go out there, not to raise your hands, not to wear -- not to put your clothes in certain way so you don't attract any kind of threat on you, whether you be perceived as a suspicious person. i believe this should be out of the question. >> i want to turn to the audience and introduce you to chris erskine and you're a pastor. >> yes. >> you're from birmingham, alabama? >> i am from birmingham. >> what's your question? >> with the tension around this situation, it reminds us of birmingham. that my wife and i drew up in. we drew up hearing these stories. we weren't a part of jim crow, but we heard about it. we didn't know bull connor, but we heard about it.

and now what can we do and what measures can be implemented so this is not a revolving crisis in all communities? >> let's put that question to professor ogletree, because i know that you explored some solutions in your book. how do you take this event and move it in a direction that 13 years later we're not having that same conversation about what did we learn from trayvon martin's death? >> well, we can't let trayvon martin's death be in vain because we have to think about our role in law enforcement. we can't say we're against law enforcement. we need to have a much more diverse law enforcement. we need to talk about community policing where people are on the ground, on the streets, talking to people so they know that you're there to protect and to serve, not just to arrest and profile. number three, we need to make sure we educate people about these differences. a person who wears a certain amount of clothing, wears a certain design of clothing is not a thug, is not a gang member. we have to understand that.

by the same token, we have to talk to our children about it. >> well, we'll be talking next about the hoodie. i have been known to wear a hoodie. we'll look at whether young black men like trayvon martin should watch what they're wearing. [ car braking ]

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this guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. its raining. he's just walking around looking about. >> okay, this guy, he looks like a hispanic? >> he looks black. >> did you see what he was wearing? >> yeah. dark hoodie, like a gray hoodie. jeans or sweatpants and light tennis shoes. >> who would have guessed that a sweatshirt with a hood would become a talking point in a discussion of trayvon martin's death? the form of the hoodie was first worn by monks back in the middle ages and then there's this famous sketch of the unabomber and facebook founder mark zuckerberg wears them and our own roland martin has been seen in one. they make a fashion statement. but they can also make a negative statement. especially if you're a young man of color. roland is joining us. he's joined the panel along with jane velez-mitchell and dr. salzer and curtis sliwa as well. how did the hoodie go from being

a popular accessory to being seen as a thug? >> it used to be when hoodies weren't popular, so when we'd see the images of people robbing banks that was the image. i remember before that it was the stocking cap. so if you were a black man you couldn't wear the stocking cap because people might say that's the thuggish look as well. the clothes are not the problem. it's the consciousness. the problem here though is when you put the clothes on a certain skin that changes everything. >> so it depends who wear it? >> absolutely. >> geraldo riviera said. >> parents, don't let your kids wear the hoodies because they can attract the attention of not only cops, but of this nut job like zimmerman. >> since then he's apologized and does he have a point there?

>> geraldo, where's your street cred? why are we fixated on the hoodie? >> why? >> because it's thug like. if you're wearing a hoodie like a thug, you've got your trousers down to butt and you're acting big and bad. no one is suggesting that trayvon martin was acting that way. there was a sea of hoodies that day. no, he locked on trayvon because he was on a mission. trayvon didn't have to have a hoodie. he was wanting to take him out. >> we had the first photo of george zimmerman was a mug shot of 2005. now you have a smiling picture in a suit and tie. we have seen pictures of a very young trayvon martin. and now you have a picture of a slightly older young man still kind of with the baby face. why do the pictures matter?

>> well, i think that the pictures matter because everybody is trying to visualize what happened that night. so the first photo showed a very young trayvon who looked like a child. and the first photos showed of zimmerman in a mug shot wearing orange outfit. and then it kind of morphed and then we saw trayvon older and we saw zimmerman. he had morphed into some kind of business man. so again, we're judging based on impressions. and isn't the whole point of this that we shouldn't judge based on superficial impressions? >> but clearly people kept changing the photo because they thought there was a value in what the message they were giving to the jury of the peers. >> of course. called the court of public opinion. it's not what we thought happened that night. so if you can create in the court of public opinion this is a thug image here, all of a sudden, you know you feel sorry for trayvon and it causes people on the fence to go, i may not want to get involved in this case because he might be a thug.

he might have sold drugs. that's why the marijuana residue, that's why people said, oh, what happened, he might have been a drug dealer. that's what that is all about. >> trayvon martin name has become a national rallying cry in the fight against racism, but there is so much we don't know what happened that day. we'll reflect on if there's a rush to judgment and too much hype about this case.

trayvon martin's death wasn't really noticed by the national media at first. then of course it exploded into a major story. well known lawmakers and civil rights leaders have added fuel by speaking out and demanding george zimmerman's arrest. how have they and we in the news media shaped public opinion about this case? we're bringing back cnn contributor roland martin and joined by michael scolknick. also with us is c.l. bryant. a tea party member and a former president of the naacp. michael, it was you on social media that brought a lot of attention to this case early on. could you have done it without social media? >> i think that's very care -- very kind. we created a story on global

grind.com, said he has a name, trayvon martin. to give him dignity when he passed. it wasn't until weeks after that that people paid attention. we had a hundred people the first day and now we have 185,000 people. and young people they brought it to the forefront. they said we care about this young man. we want justice for this young man. we see it as an international discussion. >> here's what folks don't realize. i first delved into this story on march 9. i called many of the leading civil rights leaders, they didn't know about it. if someone wants to frame this as civil rights leaders driving the story, absolutely not. they had to come along because the energy that we were amassing on social media, black radio, black websites. >> ul an ind -- all an indication that the hype was working. >> it was grass roots bottom up. >> evidence that it can work against you. and spike lee, he had a tweet, he apologized for it and then

after that, one who was part of the elderly couple who was targeted because their home, she said this. >> we got out of the house. it's just too scary. we've got to quit the hatred and the vengeance and start looking on the inside of people and quit looking on the outside of people. it's just sad the reactions that have been going on. we've living in a hotel, having to eat our food out. we're just afraid to go home. >> it has caused this type of pain. here we are in 2012 america. and we're having conversations that we'd very easily could have had back in the '30s, the '40s. time for us to mature past this. now, this guy zimmerman had better come up with a broken nose or a bloody head or something or this is going to be

a very bad mess. >> the one aspect of the civil rights movement, they were master strategists. they understood the messaging and the timing. one of the problems when you have folks who are being mobilized without an infrastructure, they don't understand what the lawyer strategy is. they don't understand what timing is. and so when the special prosecutor says all of the comments are at no helpful right now, when you know you achieve something in a movement that's when you say, okay, now it's time for us to back off. then let's see what happens. and if need be let's move forward. so without that organization and infrastructure it's hard for people to understand those pieces.

that's why they say always consult with the lawyers in the family to know what their strategy is because their strategy drives the social movement strategy. >> this is an amazing movement, let us not forget this is a family who's lost their son. >> that's right. they're looking to blame someone. they're looking for justice in that. and america is watching. it is true, the world is watching this particular case. and we are either going to be better or we're going to be worse depending on the outcome. >> one reminder. family said from day one, soledad, we simply want justice. we want him arrested. the whole point about people bringing in ban on assault weapons, change this law, that's when you have people who have an a political agenda. but i said, he wasn't arrested. >> please stand up. >> i'm maury, i first read the name on trayvon martin, facebook, i went to the million hoodie march. if it wasn't for the ground swell move -- movement that started online, would this case have been ignored? >> there's no doubt.

african americans have always known we have typically had to force prosecutors, force the police, to do what was right. that's the only reason we know that this tape comes out. which only -- the doj launching their investigation. all of that was because of public pressure. >> you cannot tell me that the story of trayvon martin ends with trayvon martin. >> no. >> well, here's where -- the conundrum. >> the parents want the arrest. but there's conversations that have been started about racial profiling and for the first time i think that there are conversations that cross a lot of racial categoies. >> this is the conundrum. will trayvon martin's death be a moment or lead to a movement. and so you're hearing people and i'm talking with several people as well, how do we mobilize people to say it goes beyond trayvon to deal with the much

broader issue of social justice in america. that's the question. >> but also, roland, the type of movement. what type of movement will this lead to? the will be a movement to make us better as a people or take us years. >> the conversation we're having will make us better. >> final word too. >> as the one white person on this stage, i think it's important -- >> you better settle down. >> i think it's important to say this about the movement. and i wrote this on global grind. as white people we have to say something. we have to be active. we can't let black and brown children be killed and be killed and just be quiet. >> that will be our final word. thank you, gentlemen. we hope tonight's discussion has helped all of you better understand some of the facts of the case, those that exist and also the emotions surrounding the death of trayvon martin. new details of course will emerge this this case and this case could ultimately be tried in a court of law. but for now it's playing out in the court of public opinion